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One of my favorite shirts from the recent presidential campaign said “Change in Which We Can Believe”.   You can find it at CafePress under writers, editors and grammarians for Obama.

Of course, the slogan heard nationally was “Change We Can Believe In”.  Catchy, but not grammatically correct.  I mention this because today, March 4, is National Grammar Day, so proclaimed by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

I do not like to call myself a grammar snob, because I make mistakes.  I sometimes (but seldom) misuse “who” and “whom”.  I find my Southern heritage creeping in with “towards” rather than “toward”.  But I am educated enough that grammatical errors in others’ work tend to leap out at me, and this can be a problem. I was reading a historical last week by a well-respected author, and the sentence “He wanted to lie her down…” hit me like the sight of the proverbial turd in a punch bowl, taking me so far out of the moment I was tempted to not finish reading the book. I had already forgiven the author her misuse of “who” and “whom” in an earlier scene, but this was going too far!

There’s the possibility that it was not the author’s error, but the editor’s error.  If so, that is even sadder.  I depend on my editors to keep me in line, to catch those errors that might slip past me, like whether I should have used the word “may” instead of “might”.   The editors I know, the ones who have managed to cling to their jobs in an age when editing appears to be considered a luxury for academic presses, but not necessary for publishers of mass market fiction, I honor those editors.  They are fighting the good fight!

So as you go through your day today, red pen in hand, Elements of Style by your side, be ready to fight the good fight yourself!  Grammar counts!  Spelling counts!  Punctuation counts!

We owe it to our readers.  Someday they’ll thank us for it.  Maybe.  Regardless (NEVER IRREGARDLESS!!!), it’s the right thing to do.

Oh, and if you spot any grammatical errors in this post, please let me know.  I would appreciate it.

Do you ever sabotage your dreams because you refuse to change? Or take a chance? Or admit you’re on the wrong path?

As January’s fresh start fades, we’re at a crossroads. The past stretches out behind us and the future before us. There are as many roads, physical, mental and spiritual, leading away from this moment as there are stars in the heavens. We can hang onto the past and the mistakes we’ve made, rehashing old wounds and reliving bad habits. We can freeze in the moment and refuse to look back or scan the roads ahead, in essence stalling our lives and our careers for a comfortable status quo.

Or we can risk everything and step forward into the unknown.

If saying the word unknown makes you break out in a sweat, I’m right there with you. So much pressure. So much risk.

I was at a crossroads last month with my career. For over a year, I’d been on a different page than my agent.  I assumed the fault was mine; I hadn’t made my expectations clear. Writing everything down, I filled a page with what I wanted and then had a heart to heart talk with her. She reassured me and we moved forward. Unfortunately, within a few months, I again felt we were on two very different pages. I tried addressing my expectations again but now felt like a pesky child instead of a career-focused author. Were my expectations too great? Probably, but my solution was to avoid the issue all together.

According to quantum physics, the hovering of an electron in all dimensions of possibility is what propels the leap to a new nuclear orbit. For me, life is a compass. If I start off in one direction and something doesn’t feel right, I turn my inner compass in a new direction and start off again. However there are times when nothing feels right or what feels right defies logic, and, oh my, I am nothing but logical! So, what do I do? I insist on maintaining status quo. That’s exactly what I did with my agent dilemma. I hovered. I maintained. In fact, I spent a whole year hoping I was finally going to get on the same page with her.

Our styles were too different, and come this January, I knew I had to make a decision. I had to stop hovering in the same orbit and hoping for something better. Having spent years trying to attain a great agent, my logical brain scoffed at my intuition’s insistence that it was time to move forward. To take the step into the unknown.

But during that year, I sold a novel and a short story with no agent involvement. The death grip I had on being an “agented author” had become less strenuous. I had seen possibilities that excited me to my core. Even my logical brain couldn’t stop thinking about them.

So if you’re hovering, do it with an open mind. Your electrons will be moving and your orbit’s going to change, guaranteed. The trick is to see the opportunities that exist on any path or orbit that comes your way.

No matter what crossroad you find yourself at this year, cut yourself some slack about picking the right path. Remember, we’re all in this together and the possibilities are as abundant as stars in the sky.

P.S. My first paranormal comedy novella, Witches Anonymous, comes out February 24^th. I took a risk and entered a contest – and I NEVER win contests – and found myself on a new career path with this story

I think it was the fabulous Clair Delacroix/Deb Cooke who once told me that writing is a job. I sort of believed it then, but not as much as I do today at this particular point in my career. I remember when writing was fun, exciting, joyful, passionate and EASY. So what happened? Where along the way did writing become less of these things.

While, I don’t think I’ve lost the excitement, the joy or the passion of writing, I now understand far better the words of wisdom that well-establish writers have handed down to those of us who haven’t hit certain levels in our career. But, the writing has become more of a job and these things I’ve always associated with writing seem a bit out of reach at the moment. I don’t know if it’s because I took a step up the career ladder or if it’s because I’m putting extra pressure on myself to do more than I’m capable. Super Writer syndrome as it were. Maybe it’s the holidays, but I feel like I’m in the Foreign Legion with my back to the wall and I’m smoking my last cigerette.

Why am I feeling this way? Part of it is my October contract with Berkley for a three-book paranormal series. Writing paranormal is new to me, so as Yanni says, “A little bit of fear means your are doing something worth doing — you are stretching — you are going outside your immediate grasp. Out of my immediate grasp? Can we say outside the atmosphere and I’m scared spitless? A three-book historical series would be easy. I know that world. But creating a new one definitely makes me stretch. And it’s scary as hell!

Another monkey wrench that’s been thrown into the mix is that I’m trying to market my newest release Dangerous, which comes out the end of January. I’ve got advertising in place, but I’m already planning for Mirage’s release in June!  I need to hire Baby to help me out. Problem is she’s just 11, and she’s not savvy enough to do it without me guiding her, and if that’s the case, it’s easier to do it myself. So I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. If only Oldest were more computer savvy and eager to help.

Then the week before Christmas, I landed my second contract with Berkley, this time for two historicals. One of those books is written (THANK GOD) but I have to write a new one. I’m over the moon about another NY sale, but OMG, my scared spitless monitor just went through the roof. I’m now facing deadlines unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire career. Normally deadlines excite me. Right now, I’m asking myself, “WTF were you thinking you idiot! Three and half books in 13-14 months???”

All of these things mean I’ve got writing deadlines, proposal deadlines, marketing deadlines and then the actual marketing of the releases. Maybe this wouldn’t be so daunting if I didn’t have to work a day job, but like most struggling new writers, I have to work the day job to keep a roof over our head.

So perhaps you can see where I’m wondering what happened to the days when writing was fun, exciting, joyful, passionate and EASY. I think those things are still there, I just don’t see them as well as perhaps I once did. It was much easier when there weren’t deadlines to deal with. I’ve always submitted completed books, now I’m selling on proposal, and the books ARE NOT written. Then there are the craft issues to include at the editor’s request, learning the technical and financial business aspects of the publishing industry (I’m a VERY SLOW learner) and this or that business piece to comprehend. And for the newbies reading this and thinking, “I don’t know what she’s whining about, she sold.” All I can say is, my Mom used to tell me you’ll understand when you grow up. She was right, damn it.

So Claire, and any other writer I ever dismissed for telling me it was hard, my apologies for my arrogance. It is easier to sell than it is to keep up with the results of selling. However, the one thing in my favor is my stubbornness. I’ll make it just to have the pleasure of saying I made it. *grin*

What do you do to keep deadlines and everything else from driving you insane?

Monica
Monica Burns | http://www.monicaburns.com
Dangerous, 4.5 Stars Romantic Times
“…a pretty good read.” MrsGiggles.com
Master of Sin, Berkley 03/10

Since the day is almost upon us, let me wish you all the very best of the season.

All I want for Christmas ~~~ is a new name!
I always thought I would write under my own name and have done so since 2006. Imagine my surprise when my new publisher asked me to find a new name because they had too many authors with my first name.

The request opened up a couple of  possibilities and a couple of concerns.

The pros:-I could keep my last name
My last name being near the end of the alphabet means my books are always on the bottom shelf in the corner. Always. So I could pick a last name that came in the middle of the alphabet, at eye level, which sounded like a pro to me.
The cons:- People who were reading my current books wouldn’t be able to find me.

I would lose my author brand.
Who would I be?
In the end I decided to go with a completely new name, and a new website, but I would still keep writing under my own name, for other publishers, but to deal with the reader issue,  I would have my new persona contribute to blog with my old persona and we would be bff’s.

So here I am, meet the new my new best friend forever.   Ta daaa.

Ann Lethbridge, writing for Harlequin Historicals. My first book comes out with them as a short story in the Undone line, cover shown here. It is called The Rake’s Intimate Encounter. It will be available in January from e-harlequin.com. I love the cover and I must say I am very excited to be writing for Harlequin. This novella  is a prequel to my full length book ~The Rake’s Inherited Courtesan which is out in April 2009.

Next time I will tell you how I set about choosing the perfect new name.   Or at least, perfect in my humble opinion.

I have three books published in German.  You can see them at Amazon.de, and you can also see the covers at my website.  I was very happy when I saw the covers for Samt & Sabel (Sword and Velvet, aka Captain Sinister’s Lady) and Rache & Rosen (Revenge and Roses, aka Pirate’s Price) because they were so…tasteful.  Swords and flowing fabric and coins and daggers.  Even the titles were euphonious!

Then I got the cover for Im Aufruhr der Gefuhle. At first, I thought it was a mistake.  I used Google translation on the page and it said the title translated to “In the Turmoil of Emotions”.  It started out in life as “Smuggler’s Bride”.  I had a blank moment as I stared at the page.  What happened to my tasteful covers? Why was Julia falling out of her bodice? And most puzzling of all, why was there a killer pink flamingo looming in the background over Julia and Rand?

I contacted my editor in Germany at Random House.  She hemmed and hawed a bit via email, but then she said the first books weren’t selling as well as they’d hoped.  Apparently, with those oh-so-tasteful covers, no one knew they were romance novels.

At first, I wasn’t happy about this change in covers.  But as I stared at the busty babe and the half-naked dude, I began to smile.  Yes, my book is full of turmoiled emotions and passion.  Yes, there are definitely scenes where he’s bare chested and her bodice isn’t fully fastened.  And while there’s not a pink flamingo in this Florida set romance, there are lots of possums.  And I acknowledge it’s hard to get possums to equal passion.

So if this “old school” cover leaps out at my German readers and screams, “I’m a historical romance! Buy me!” then I’m all for it. I’m in the business of writing books.  I want to sell as many of my books as possible, and I want to make it as easy as I can for the reader to get her hands on my publications.  I still like my tasteful books, but if In the Turmoil of Emotions replenishes my 401K, then I guarantee I’ll be smiling all the way to the bank.